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Dave Grohl is a rock god. Believe it (he looks like Jesus right now anyway). The fact that is took him thirteen years with the Foo Fighters to get to Madison Square Gardens is kind of unbelievable.
What is also pretty unbelievable is what I am about to say: That show sucked.
For me to read that even now hurts my heart and I think I died a little inside. I can’t berate the whole thing because it’s amazing to have the entire Garden sing the first chorus of “Breakout” amongst a few other momentary gems, but after watching the Fuse broadcast of the Foo rock the Big Apple, I am not happy with what I saw.
The main problem I want to blame on Fuse and their sound guys. The bass throughout the whole show was way too loud and this is coming from someone who has played bass in bands since he was 16 years old. Besides that, the rest of the band sounded weak. I don’t know what it was, but there’s no other word to describe it other than weak. I really hope that this is all the fault of Fuse because I really can’t convince myself that the Foo Fighters don’t crank their shit to 11 and blow the roof off the place.
Also, last time I checked, there were four members of the Foo Fighters, not eight. Pat Smear left the band in ‘97 and it should stay that way. I don’t know why they keep bringing that platinum bleached blonde asshole back but they seem to love the gap-toothed bastard on third guitar. Throw him in with another percussionist, female vocals/strings and a pianist who looks like every fucking added in piano player ever (semi-long haircut, rock tee with a blazer over it, jeans = d-bag add in piano player) and you have the Foo Orchestra!
We already got our fill of acoustic performances on Skin & Bones and I have heard “My Hero” and “Everlong” done in that fashion (the best on the Howard Stern Show) a couple times. I really want the Foo Fighters to get on stage and rip through a set as loud and as hard as possible. They did a good job by doing “Everlong” half acoustic and busting into it, but I rather have the high-energy chorus every time around.
I am unfortunate enough to have never of caught the Foo Fighters live in concert in the past and I will continue my streak of bad luck this time around again since I have to miss them when they roll through Chicago but maybe it’s for the best right now. When the Foo decides to do some small club tour where they can’t throw in all the extra bullshit I don’t want to see, I will be there.
The news that legendary bipolar outsider musician Daniel Johnston was touring this year was met by yours truly with no small amount of surprise. While i had become interested in Johnston’s career thanks to the 2005 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston (yes, i’m not gonna put on airs here–while i had heard of Daniel before that movie’s release, it was the film that truly opened the door to Daniel’s psyche for me), i hadn’t been paying enough attention to realize that he was actually healthy enough to play shows, let alone tour. So when tickets went on sale for his Feb. 7th concert at historic Turner Hall in Milwaukee, i grabbed mine immediately. After all, what are the chances he’ll come back to Brewtown any time soon?
My friends and i showed up at Turner around 8:30, just in time to miss opening act The Scarring Party, but let’s not dwell on that. As we made our way into the hall, the second opening band, Milwaukee’s John Sieger and The Subcontinentals, were playing incredibly boring, vanilla adult contemporary blues-rock that appealed to…well, i’m not sure who. Maybe there were some fifty-year-old Wisconsin Area Music Industry members in the audience. I know it made my friend Alex “Climax Denial” Kmet want to claw his eyes out, since that’s easier and more evocative than clawing out one’s ears, which would have made more sense. I wanted him to help me with mine. (Ears or eyes, you ask? Yes. Ears AND eyes.)
As Johnston began his set with “Speeding Motorcycle,” he had the Subcontinentals behind him, assuming the role of nondescript backing band, to which, frankly, they were better suited. Still, my friends and i let out a sigh of relief when they left the stage, leaving Daniel alone with his guitar, his songs, his wavering voice (and hands), and his adoring audience. About those hands–they shook throughout the show, betraying either nerves or some side effect from his condition. Either way, it provided a convenient microcosm of the larger performance in progress–Daniel, alone on stage, fighting with every last ounce of resolve to battle back the demons and put on a show for the Milwaukeeans yelling “we love you Daniel!” And battle he did, with guitar, piano, and his college friend Brett Hartenbach, who played a good chunk of the set on acoustic guitar while Daniel just sang, vibrating with electricity from either his music or the dark bits of his brain–you decide which. Both, most likely.
Through the entire show i sat, my every ounce of attention fixated on Daniel’s earnest, childlike voice, drinking in every rhythmic inaccuracy, every occasionally flubbed note. There’s a school of thought (mostly expressed when discussing the late schizophrenic Chicago street performer Wesley Willis) that says it’s unkind to enjoy seeing a mentally damaged soul bear their heart onstage–that it’s tantamount to exploitation somehow. Which is ridiculous, of course. Watching Daniel Johnston perform his signature encore of “True Love Will Find You in the End” is nothing short of inspiring. To see someone who’s lived as difficultly as Daniel Johnston, only to live as fully as he has (and to have been found by that True Love, even if it’s in the form of weird douchey college hippies obnoxiously yelling “DANIEL!” between every song right behind where i was sitting, consarn it), makes the shit we have to deal with every day seem like a cakewalk by comparison.
But screw all the eloquent waxing and flowery prose–it’s just a damn good show. If the tour’s coming near you, don’t be an idiot–this is a once-in-a-lifetime engagement. Do it up.
Current Confirmed Daniel Johnston remaining tour dates:
02-20 Boston, MA - Roxy
02-21 New York, NY - Highline Ballroom
02-22 Philadelphia, PA - Trocadero Theater
02-23 Washington, DC - Black Cat
02-24 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
Instead of compiling a list of ten albums/artists that I liked in 2007 (which would, of course, involve confessing that I listened to more than my usual share of Timbaland and Timberlake), I’m going to wax poetic (prosaic?) about one record and one show, and why they made my year. Here goes:
Best album of 2007: The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour
Unlike earlier Weakerthans albums, which tend to fade in, build up, and fade out, Reunion Tour is, with a few exceptions, a highly successful exercise in decrescendo. The deceptively-titled opener, “Civil Twilight” (it sounds, you know, slow), throws down. Three songs later, “Tournament of Hearts”–likely a dark horse by Weakerthans standards but my personal favorite on the album–sets impulsive lyric energy (“have to stop myself from climbing / on the table full of empties / to yell…”) against a backdrop of growling guitar and insistent drums. I’m still not quite sure how Jason Tait manages to make his kit sound like the entire percussion section of a high school marching band, but the result is infectious.
After “Tournament,” the album shifts into a set of down-tempo elegiac tracks: the heart-wrenching “Virtute The Cat Explains Her Departure” (the followup, of course, to Reconstruction Site’s “Plea from a Cat named Virtute”); the spoken-word “Elegy for Gump Worsley”; the bittersweet tribute to moving, “Sun in an Empty Room”; and, finally, the kick-drum laced “Night Windows,” which–if the song’s casualty is indeed a fallen solider–is the most moving anti-war ballad I’ve heard in a very long time.
Following this potential sobfest, the short, slow “Bigfoot” makes peace with the album’s losses (“the visions that I see believe in me”), and then “Reunion Tour” (slightly more upbeat) and “Utilities” carry the album to a hopeful close. It’s this thematic arc, plus John K. Samson’s almost-but-not-quite-through-the-nose plaintive singing style, plus the deceptively simple musical arrangements, that makes Reunion Tour simultaneously so comforting and so smart. I dub it “album I would like to curl up inside”: pretty much the highest rating I give.
Best live show of 2007: John Vanderslice at The Middle East Upstairs (September 28, 2007, Cambridge, MA)
I generally believe it’s a huge mistake to conflate a musician’s stage persona with the rest of their real-life existence, and vice versa–to me, it seems similar to mistaking a novelist for one of his or her characters. But that doesn’t mean that a stage act can’t give me warm fuzzies, because this is what John Vanderslice does every time I see him. On this particular occasion, it certainly didn’t hurt that Boston-based Bishop Allen were opening: they played a flawless set. Ultimately, though, John Vanderslice’s set was the memorable one, because it was horrifically flawed yet completely awesome. Read more »
Last night the cartoon nerdgasm that is Adult Swim’s Dethklok/…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead “Calligraphy Nightmare Logos of the Damned” tour bulldozed its way into Madison, Wisconsin’s Majestic Theater for a supposedly UW student-only event. Fortunately for me, a friend of mine secured a photo pass and +1 spot for a local publication she writes for, and thus, my ownership of a car turned me into her +1. A winner is me, and thus, i found myself in the Majestic’s picturesque confines for what was certainly an explosion of heavy metal nerdery not seen since the release of Beowulf.
I’m not sure that i have much to say about the actual Dethklok performance other than to say that it’s exactly what any fan of Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse could hope for: series creator Brendon Small leads a real-life metal band that performs signature ‘klok anthems like “Go Forth and Die,” “Thunderhorse” and “Mermaidur” while a video screen above the band plays synced-up videos for each song while connecting the entire set with between-song skits involving bathroom breaks and the like. The songs absolutely crushed, the band absolutely killed, the fans absolutely swayed and moshed.
But what i’m honestly more interested in writing about is the opening act, Austin, TX epic-rock vets the Trail of Dead. Read more »
Our first (and last) marquee of this tour!
As I believe I mentioned in the last tour journal entry, I could have been fine with Seattle being the last show of the tour, and if Portland sucked it… well that would be fine, I would just remember it different in my mind. See, the NW fest, which is a big music festival was happening that weekend, which the Tonic is NOT a part of, and basically meant that we were competing with at least a dozen really good shows. Bummer!
However, I was very pleasantly surprised by the PDX, and. dun… dun… DAH the very last night of the tour.
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Montana is big and wide, it’s why it’s called Big Sky Country. It’s also home to Wantage USA one hell of a rock label that puts out some amazing stuff (think: Fucking Champs, The Whip, Big Business, Federation-X), etc. Although we had only been to Missoula once, almost 5 years ago, we had a great time and were excited to return there.
Kum and Go!
a real chain of convienence stores/gas stations
After spending the better part of the day travelling through Montana, which again is very pretty, but also FREAKING HUGE, we finally roll into Missoula, where we stop by a local coffee shop for liquid libations for the caff-heads in the band, and delicious crepes for all. The numbers taken for orders were actually different countries, which led to endless jokes about Italy sitting with the German delegation, and France being lowest on the totem pole for food imports.
We also briefly stopped by the local army surplus store, looking at the paintball guns and butterfly knives, good times!
Missoula is a cool little town, I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly makes it different, but it is unique. It has a combination of college town, plus working class mentality and…Montana. It somehow seems to work in a way that it never has for me in say, Olympia. Everybody is very friendly and helpful and cool and the vibe is just pretty cool. I’m sure it has it’s dark side like everywhere else, but it just seems like a nice place to me.
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